IC- 20 - Waystation - Kiara

[Mephistophilis]

Kiara presses the suit controls and the array of headlamps built into the suit brightly illuminate a broad patch ahead of her.

The suit has lamps built in.

[jp1885]

“Switch your helmet lights on too,” Kiara instructs Li. “Increases visibility a bit.”

Breathing nervously, and moving her head to throw the light from side to side, she takes another step into the shuttle, looking for danger.

[Mephistophilis]

Sounds like a Spot Hidden and a Listen.

[jp1885]

[51] = 51
Spot hidden 37 d%: [ 51 ] = 51

[68] = 68
Listen 20 d%: [ 68 ] = 68

Perhaps it’s her nerves, but Kiara doesn’t notice anything sinister.

Emboldened slightly, she moves further into the shuttle.

[Mephistophilis]

Kiara steps off the stairs and into the entry hatch. On her right is the door to the cockpit which is shut fast. Turning to the left she can see the main cabin with rows of seating. The front few rows have had the chairs removed and a number of storage crates and cages installed. Cautiously she starts to walk down the aisle between the seats, her boots clacking against the metallic floor.

She pauses to glance into the storage racks which are empty. The seats and other surfaces are covered in a thin layer of methane frost. None of the electronic equipment seems to be powered on, the screens in the back of the seats are blank. There is no sign of life in the cabin, no movement, no sounds. It is silent like a grave. It isn't clear what the purpose of this shuttle flight was but there's no one here now.

[jp1885]

“Looks like they were transporting equipment. I wonder what?” Kiara mutters, wiping a gloved hand over the frost in an attempt to see if the crates are labelled.

[Mephistophilis]

Most of the racks are empty. There's one half open crate that she heaves into the gangway and opens up. It is made of some kind of toughened polycarbonate shell, green coloured. Hinged on one side it opens up like a briefcase and inside it is lined with a spongy protective foam, with a shape cut-out. Whatever was in here has been taken but it had an odd shape, elongated, like a weapon of some kind, maybe a rifle. Not the sort of thing she'd expect to find in a civilian shuttle operated by Richter Dynamics.

[jp1885]

“Hmm, maybe accessing the shuttle manifest will give us a clue as to what’s going on here,” Kiara mutters as she closes the case.

“Li, can you help me look for a data port? If we can’t find one, we’ll have to try the cockpit door - knowing our luck it’ll be locked.”

[Mephistophilis]

'I'll have a look' says Li, and she shines her suit lights up and down the cabin aisle.

Sounds like a Luck roll.

[jp1885]

[48] = 48
Luck 60 d%: [ 48 ] = 48

Despite her statement, Kiara gets lucky.

[Mephistophilis]

Li quickly gestures to a dataport next to some seats. 'See, standard Arcturus-II shuttle. Apart from the crates. There's dataports beside all the seating.' As she takes a closer look, Kiara can see that Li is right, there are hard dataports along the fuselage on both sides. She extracts a data connector from her suit and plugs it into the port. Tapping the control panel on her suit to access the port she can't make any connection with the shuttle. She tries patching in to a few more ports but gets the same response. The ship's powered down, none of the ports are live.

Watching Kiara struggle up and down the cabin trying all the ports, Li eventually says 'Cockpit?'

[jp1885]

“Yeah, of course…” mutters Kiara, glad that her blushes can’t be seen behind her visor.

“Let’s hope the door isn’t locked or frozen shut.”

She clumps over to the cockpit door and tries to open it.

[Mephistophilis]

Li tries the control panel for the cockpit door but it doesn't respond. Probably because the power is out. Then she starts trying to force the door open. It is indeed frozen shut but with a bit of help from Kiara they eventually manage to slide the door open enough for them to fit their bulky surface suits through.



The cockpit itself resembles the glimpses Kiara has had of the one that brought them to Titan. Two flight seats, and a panel of instruments, all dark. And a view out the large windows onto a hazy orange surface, blurred by the layer of methane ice frozen onto the inside. Li jumps into one of the seats and starts tapping at the control panel without any visible results. Kiara steps in behind. It takes her a second to process what looks wrong about this scene. In the second seat, beside Li, there's something bulky. She spins the chair round, her weapons clutched tightly.



Crumpled in the seat is a figure. They're not in a Titan surface suit but a standard issue Richter Dynamics flight suit. They look dead. Frozen.

While Kiara stands there, looking at the corpse, Li starts removing instrument plates and poking around inside, seemingly oblivious to the dead body beside her. After a short delay a couple of lights on the instrument panel illuminate. 'She's low on power. It's going to take me a while to get her warmed up. Maybe an hour or more. Why don't you do whatever you...'

Li turns around to look at Kiara and catches sight of the body.

That's a SAN roll for seeing a corpse, 0/1d3.

[jp1885]

[45] = 45
SAN 61 d%: [ 45 ] = 45

“Yeah,” says Kiara, flatly. “I was kinda expecting that. Keep warming her up and I’ll check out the poor guy. Maybe I can find out what killed him or see if they’re carrying anything useful.”

[Mephistophilis]

The guy in the seat is definitely dead, his skin is covered in a layer of frost and he's completely rigid. He's a man in his twenties or thirties, dressed in a flight suit and wearing, unusually, a full flight helmet, not something Kiara has seen on a shuttle pilot before. There's no obvious injury she can see and she wonders whether he just froze to death. Although his face suggests something a bit more sudden. Kiara rifles through his pockets but there's nothing in them, which she also thinks is a bit odd.

There's only one body, in the other flight seat, the one Li isn't in. I'll have a Spot Hidden for examining the body.

[jp1885]

Oops, sorry about that: perils of playing while life is busy! Previous post duly edited.
[29] = 29
Spot hidden 37 d%: [ 29 ] = 29

Kiara gingerly inspects the frozen corpse.

[Mephistophilis]

His clothing is stiff and frozen, and Kiara struggles to get his flight suit open to take a look underneath. But she does manage to pull up his sleeves and find a small tattoo. Something about it looks familiar.

Want to roll Know (EDU) with a bonus die to see if you remember what this symbol means.

[jp1885]

[47] = 47
EDU 65 d%: [ 47 ] = 47
Bonus die
[1] = 1
1d10: [ 1 ] = 1

The symbol rings a bell…

[Mephistophilis]

Although she's never seen them in person, the symbol of the Colonial Marine Corp is immediately familiar to Kiara. Either this pilot is ex-military or the marines were travelling incognito. The way he's wearing a military-style helmet and has no other identifying paperwork, and based on what she saw in the cabin, she thinks it's the latter. She doesn't know much about the military but she knows it is unusual for them to be using a corporate shuttle rather than their own vehicle. The marines are rarely seen on the colonies where the Colonial Marshals and the Colonial Security Service cover most eventualities. The marines are for insurgencies and uprisings, not routine security matters.

[jp1885]

Kiara whistles.

“Someone sent down the Marines,” she tells Li.

“Question is: was this before or after the shit hit the fan?”

She scans the corpse with her datapad. In addition to checking for alien crystalline physiology, perhaps she can determine how long he has been dead for (admittedly difficult due to his frozen state)?